One Hundred Years of Flight USAF Chronology ... - The Air University

1988
1988
January 1: Strategic Air Command changed Minuteman and Peacekeeper
crew-assignment policy to permit mixed male/female crews in launch
facilities.
March 17–18: USAF transport aircraft carried some 3,200 U.S. soldiers to
the Republic of Honduras to support Exercise GOLDEN PHEASANT.
The Honduran government requested the deployment after experiencing
an incursion of Sandinista forces from Nicaragua.
April 5–8: Eight C–5 Galaxies and 22 C–141 Starlifters of Military Airlift
Command transported 1,300 security specialists from the United
States to the Republic of Panama to counteract political instability that
threatened the safety of several thousand U.S. citizens in the Canal
Zone.
April 17–July 23: Capt. Michael Eastman, USAF, and his C–5 Galaxy transport
crew were the first U.S. airmen to land at Semipalatinsk, Republic
of Kazakhstan, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. They delivered
sensitive verification equipment for monitoring nuclear tests under
existing international agreements. Captain Eastman received the
Mackay Trophy for successful execution of this mission.
August 15–28: C–5 Galaxies airlifted a 500-member United Nations peacekeeping
force from Canada to Turkey and Iraq to monitor a cease-fire
agreement between the two countries.
September 29: The launch of the space shuttle Discovery marked the
resumption of the U.S. manned space program, delayed in the wake
of the Challenger disaster of January 28, 1986.
November 10: The Air Force revealed the F–117 stealth fighter to the public
for the first time. Manufactured by Lockheed, the F–117 could
evade most radar detection with its radical shape and radar-absorbent
surface.
November 15: The Soviet Union launched Buran, its first space shuttle.
November 30: The Soviet Union rolled out its An–225 transport, the world’s
largest aircraft.
December 9: For the first time, the United States flew airplanes directly to
the Soviet Union without Soviet personnel on board as observers. The
flights were part of the first humanitarian airlift to the Communist
country, which earlier had refused such assistance. Over the course of
eight weeks, Military Airlift Command aircraft and crews delivered
more than 311 tons of relief cargo to victims of an earthquake in Yerevan,
Armenia.
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